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Where is cotton grown? Well, in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and... in space!
No kidding. NASA is carrying out an experiment on the International Space Station, which is circling 400 km above the earth, to see how cotton grows in the absence of gravity.
Cotton is an indispensable cash crop, and the world grows about 25 million tonnes of it every year. The experiment, which will be conducted by NASA’s Expedition65 to the ISS, is designed to investigate to what extent the root system architecture influences stress resilience, water-use efficiency and carbon sequestration. These properties are believed to be linked to an enhanced root system that explores the soil wider and deeper for water and nutrients. Such exploration patterns are strongly linked to gravity.
Well, then, what happens if there is no gravity? Which environmental factors or genes are at play in the development of the root system? NASA will tell us after October, when Expedition65 ends.
The investigation has been sponsored by the US retail store Target. No wonder, then, that the programme is called ‘Targeting Improved Cotton Through On-orbit Cultivation’.
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